Systems and methods for fraud liability shifting

ABSTRACT

A method comprising creating, by a computer-based system for shifting financial responsibility for a transaction from a merchant to a transaction account issuer, a digital wallet associated with a transaction account holder, wherein the digital wallet comprises one or more attributes associated with the transaction account holder, confirming, by the computer-based system, the attribute in response to a transaction request, and/or determining, by the computer-based system, whether to shift financial responsibility for the transaction from the merchant to the transaction account issuer.

FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to e-commerce, and moreparticularly, to an authentication application programming interface(“API”) capable of shifting fraud liability away from a merchant basedupon a variety of factors.

BACKGROUND

At present, merchants typically bear the risk of fraudulent e-commerce(card not present or online) transactions. Thus, where a fraudulenttransaction is conducted online, merchants (as opposed to transactionaccount issuers) usually bear the expense of the fraudulent transaction.

SUMMARY

In various embodiments, a method for enhanced authorization and/orshifting liability from a merchant to a transaction account issuer isdisclosed. The method may comprise creating (by an authorizationcomputer-based system) a digital wallet associated with a transactionaccount holder. The digital wallet may comprise one or more attributesassociated with the transaction account holder, and/or confirming theattribute in response to a transaction request. The method may furtherdetermine whether to shift financial responsibility for the transactionfrom the merchant to the transaction account issuer. Moreover, invarious embodiments, a request may be received from a merchant system toapprove the transaction request. A digital wallet may, in variousembodiments, comprise a first attribute entered by the transactionaccount holder as well as a second attribute gathered by thecomputer-based system. The transaction account issuer may issue, basedon the attribute, a challenge question to the transaction accountholder. Should the transaction account holder satisfy the challenge, thetransaction account issuer may accept financial liability for thetransaction, should the transaction be fraudulent. However, thetransaction account issuer may also decline to shift responsibility forthe transaction from the merchant to the transaction account issuerbased upon an incorrect response to the challenge question. The methodmay further comprise automatically populating a merchant online form.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features and advantages of the present disclosure will become moreapparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken inconjunction with the drawings. The left-most digit of a reference numberidentifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.

FIG. 1 illustrates, in accordance with various embodiments, a system fortransferring liability for fraud associated with an online transactionfrom a merchant to a transaction account issuer;

FIG. 2 illustrates, in accordance with various embodiments, a processfor transferring liability for fraud associated with an onlinetransaction from a merchant to a transaction account issuer;

FIG. 3 illustrates, in accordance with various embodiments, a variety ofdata which may be associated with a transaction account holder; and

FIG. 4 illustrates, in accordance with various embodiments, a variety ofdata which may be associated with a transaction account holder andtransferred to a merchant during an online transaction.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The detailed description of exemplary embodiments herein makes referenceto the accompanying drawings, which show the exemplary embodiments byway of illustration and their best mode. While these exemplaryembodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilledin the art to practice the disclosure, it should be understood thatother embodiments may be realized and that logical and mechanicalchanges may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of thedisclosure. Thus, the detailed description herein is presented forpurposes of illustration only and not of limitation. For example, thesteps recited in any of the method or process descriptions may beexecuted in any order and are not limited to the order presented.Moreover, any of the functions or steps may be outsourced to orperformed by one or more third parties. Furthermore, any reference tosingular includes plural embodiments, and any reference to more than onecomponent may include a singular embodiment.

Phrases and terms similar to “financial institution,” “transactionaccount issuer” and “payment processor” may include any person, entity,software and/or hardware that offers transaction account services.Although often referred to as a “financial institution,” the financialinstitution may represent any type of bank, lender or other type ofaccount issuing institution, such as credit card companies, cardsponsoring companies, or third party issuers under contract withfinancial institutions. It is further noted that other participants maybe involved in some phases of the transaction, such as an intermediarysettlement institution.

Phrases and terms similar to a “transaction account holder,” “buyer,”“participant”, “consumer,” and/or “user” may include any person, entity,software and/or hardware that receives items in exchange forconsideration (e.g. financial payment). For example, a buyer maypurchase, lease, rent, barter or otherwise obtain items from a supplierand pay the supplier using a transaction account.

Phrases and terms similar to an “item” may include any good, service,information, experience, data, discount, rebate, points, virtualcurrency, content, access, rental, lease, contribution, account, credit,debit, benefit, right, reward, points, coupons, credits, monetaryequivalent, anything of value, something of minimal or no value,monetary value, non-monetary value and/or the like. Moreover, the“transactions” or “purchases” discussed herein may be associated with anitem. Furthermore, a “reward” may be an item.

Phrases or terms similar to a “processor” (such as a payment processor)or “transaction account issuer” may include a company (e.g., a thirdparty) appointed (e.g., by a merchant) to handle transactions formerchant banks. Processors may be broken down into two types: front-endand back-end. Front-end processors have connections to varioustransaction accounts and supply authorization and settlement services tothe merchant banks' merchants. Back-end processors accept settlementsfrom front-end processors and, via The Federal Reserve Bank, move moneyfrom an issuing bank to the merchant bank. In an operation that willusually take a few seconds, the payment processor will both check thedetails received by forwarding the details to the respective account'sissuing bank or card association for verification, and may carry out aseries of anti-fraud measures against the transaction. Additionalparameters, including the account's country of issue and its previouspayment history, may be used to gauge the probability of the transactionbeing approved. In response to the payment processor receivingconfirmation that the transaction account details have been verified,the information may be relayed back to the merchant, who will thencomplete the payment transaction. In response to the verification beingdenied, the payment processor relays the information to the merchant,who may then decline the transaction.

As used herein, “transmit” may include sending electronic data from onesystem component to another over a network connection. Additionally, asused herein, “data” may include encompassing information such ascommands, queries, files, data for storage, and the like in digital orany other form.

The terms “payment vehicle,” “financial transaction instrument,”“transaction instrument,” or “transaction account product” may be usedinterchangeably throughout to refer to a financial instrument. As usedherein, an account code may be associated with a transaction account,but may or may not be associated with a physical financial instrument.

Phrases or terms similar to “transaction account” may include anyaccount that may be used to facilitate a financial transaction. A“transaction account” as used herein refers to an account associatedwith an open account or a closed account system (as described herein).The transaction account may exist in a physical or non-physicalembodiment. For example, a transaction account may be distributed innon-physical embodiments such as an account number, frequent-flyeraccount, and telephone calling account or the like. Furthermore, aphysical embodiment of a transaction account may be distributed as afinancial instrument.

In general, transaction accounts may be used for transactions betweenthe user and merchant through any suitable communication means, such as,for example, a telephone network, intranet, the global, public Internet,a point of interaction device (e.g., a point of sale (POS) device,personal digital assistant (PDA), mobile telephone, kiosk, etc.), onlinecommunications, off-line communications, wireless communications, and/orthe like.

As used herein, an application programming interface (“API”) maycomprise any software capable of performing an interaction between oneor more software components as well as interacting with and/or accessingone or more data storage elements (e.g., server systems, databases, harddrives, and the like). An API may comprise a library that specifiesroutines, data structures, object classes, variables, and the like.Thus, an API may be formulated in a variety of ways and based upon avariety of specifications or standards, including, for example, POSIX,the MICROSOFT WINDOWS API, a standard library such as C++, a JAVA API,and the like.

Further, as used herein, an “attribute” may comprise any quality,feature, and/or characteristic of a transaction account holder, such asthe transaction account holder's native language, the transactionaccount holder's city and state of residence, and the like. Further, anattribute may comprise data. In various embodiments, data may compriseany information, facts, and/or statistic collected about a transactionaccount holder. Thus, for example, data may comprise a transactionaccount holder's transaction account data, a number of days since atransaction account holder's last login to a particular account, atransaction account number, an expiration date, an IP address of theweb-client 102, and the like (e.g., as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4).

Referring to FIG. 1, a system 100 configured for transferring theresponsibility for payment of a fraudulent transaction from a merchantto a transaction account issuer is shown. The system 100 may comprise,in various embodiments, a transaction account issuer system 102, anetwork 104, a merchant system 106, and/or a transaction account holderweb-client 108. The transaction account issuer system 102 may includeone or more APIs, as described herein.

A network 104 may comprise any electronic communications system ormethod which incorporates software and/or hardware components.Communication may be accomplished through any suitable communicationchannels, such as, for example, a telephone network, an extranet, anintranet, Internet, point of interaction device (point of sale device,personal digital assistant, smart phone, cellular phone (e.g., iPhone®,Palm Pilot®, Blackberry®), kiosk, etc.), online communications,satellite communications, off-line communications, wirelesscommunications, transponder communications, local area network (LAN),wide area network (WAN), virtual private network (VPN), networked orlinked devices, keyboard, mouse and/or any suitable communication ordata input modality. Moreover, although a network 104 may be describedherein as being implemented with TCP/IP communications protocols, thenetwork 104 may also be implemented using IPX, Appletalk, IP-6, NetBIOS,OSI, any tunneling protocol (e.g. IPsec, SSH), or any number of existingor future protocols. If the network 104 is in the nature of a publicnetwork, such as the Internet, it may be advantageous to presume thenetwork 104 to be insecure and open to eavesdroppers. Specificinformation related to the protocols, standards, and applicationsoftware utilized in connection with the Internet is generally known tothose skilled in the art and, as such, need not be detailed herein. See,for example, DILIP NAIK, INTERNET STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLS (1998); JAVA 2COMPLETE, various authors, (Sybex 1999); DEBORAH RAY AND ERIC RAY,MASTERING HTML 4.0 (1997); and LOSHIN, TCP/IP CLEARLY EXPLAINED (1997)and DAVID GOURLEY AND BRIAN TOTTY, HTTP, THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE (2002),the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

A merchant system 106 may comprise any hardware and/or software suitableand/or capable of accommodating an online or e-commerce transaction.Thus, a merchant system 106 may comprise any website architecture suchas a multi-tier client-server architecture (e.g., a three-tierarchitecture). A merchant system 106 may therefore generate and/orprovide a merchant e-commerce website where a customer may shop foritems offered for sale by the merchant online.

A transaction account holder web-client 108 may include any device(e.g., personal computing device/mobile communication device) whichcommunicates via any network. A web-client may be associated with and/orused by a consumer, a merchant, or both. A web-client may comprise avariety of browsing software or browser applications (e.g., MicrosoftInternet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or anyother of the myriad software packages available for browsing theinternet). Such browser applications may comprise Internet browsingsoftware installed within a computing unit or a system to conduct onlinetransactions and/or communications. These computing units or systems maytake the form of a computer or processor, or a set ofcomputers/processors, although other types of computing units or systemsmay be used, including laptops, notebooks, hand held computers, personaldigital assistants, cellular phones, smart phones (e.g., iPhone®,BlackBerry®, Droid®, etc.) set-top boxes, workstations,computer-servers, main frame computers, mini-computers, PC servers,pervasive computers, network sets of computers, personal computers, suchas iPads, iMACs, and MacBooks, kiosks, terminals, point of sale (POS)devices and/or terminals, televisions, or any other device capable ofreceiving data over a network 104.

As those skilled in the art will appreciate, a web-client may include anoperating system (e.g., Windows NT, 95/98/2000/CE/Mobile, OS2, UNIX,Linux, Solaris, MacOS, PalmOS, etc.) as well as various conventionalsupport software and drivers typically associated with computers. Aweb-client may implement security protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer(SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS). A web-client may implement oneor more application layer protocols, including, for example, http,https, ftp, and sftp. Transactions originating at a web client may passthrough a firewall (not shown; see below) in order to preventunauthorized access from users of other networks.

With reference to FIG. 2, an example process 200 for additional fraudchecking, enhanced authorization and transferring fraud liabilityextending from an online transaction from a merchant to a transactionaccount issuer is shown. Additional features for enhanced authorizationmay be found in, for example, U.S. application Ser. No. 13/411,299entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ENHANCED AUTHORIZATION FRAUDMITIGATION” and filed Mar. 2, 2012 which issued as U.S. Pat. No.8,719,167 on May 6, 2014; U.S. application Ser. No. 13/411,370 entitled“SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ENHANCED AUTHORIZATION FRAUD MITIGATION” andfiled Mar. 2, 2012 which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,650,120 on Feb. 11,2014 U.S. and application Ser. No. 14/213,925 filed Mar. 14, 2014, allof which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

In various embodiments, a transaction account holder may sign into atransaction account issuer system 102 provided website to create a“digital wallet” (step 202). A digital wallet may be establishedpreviously and does not need to be established for each transaction.However, the information associated with the digital wallet may besupplemented, deleted or changed at various times. The digital walletmay reside anywhere or in multiple places and/or may be partially orfully controlled by any entity or person. The digital wallet may alsoreceive information from various entities or people.

As used herein, a “digital wallet” may comprise a collection ofinformation, such as a variety of attributes. The attributes may beassociated with a transaction account holder, such as any of theattributes shown at FIGS. 3 and 4. For example, a transaction accountholder (or others) may provide (for storage by the transaction accountissuer system 102) one or more transaction accounts, as well as avariety of attributes associated with each transaction account. Thedigital wallet may also obtain attributes from a third party (e.g.,credit agency, etc). In addition, the transaction account issuer system102 (or other systems) may collect a variety of attributes associatedwith the transaction account holder and/or the transaction accountholder's web-client 102. These attributes may be added to thetransaction account holder's digital wallet (step 204).

The transaction account holder may, in various embodiments, engage in anonline shopping experience by reviewing the items offered for sale by amerchant (or others) on the merchant's online website. The transactionaccount holder may select one or more items for purchase from themerchant's website. In response, the merchant website may display forthe transaction account holder a purchase portion of the website (e.g.,a “checkout” page), where the transaction account holder is requested bythe merchant website to enter a variety of attributes, such as thetransaction account holder's transaction account number, the expirationdate of the transaction account, the transaction account holder'sbilling and shipping addresses, and the like. In various embodiments,the merchant may simply process the transaction based upon theseattributes, such as, for example, wherein the transaction account isassociated with a transaction account issuer that stores the digitalwallet. However, in various embodiments, a transaction account issuerthat stores the digital wallet may be capable of performing a variety offraud shifting operations.

Traditionally, a transaction account holder might be required to enterthe one or more attributes each time the transaction account holderperformed a transaction online. However, in various embodiments, thetransaction account holder may log-in, via the merchant providedwebsite, to the transaction account holder's digital wallet, which maybe used to automatically populate the merchant requested attributefields, thereby saving the transaction account holder time and effortexpended entering these attributes for each online transaction.

In addition, the merchant system may, in response, request anauthorization for the requested transaction from the transaction accountissuer system 102 (step 206). The additional authorizations discussedherein may occur before, during and/or after the typical authorizationprocess.

Traditionally, the merchant system 106 may simply request anauthorization for the e-commerce transaction, and the transactionaccount issuer system 102 makes a determination as to whether toauthorize the transaction based upon very limited attributes (as themerchant system 106 typically transferred little, if any, attributes,such as the transaction account number, billing address, and expiry dateof the account to the transaction account issuer system 102). Thus, asthe transaction account issuer system 102 has had little information,aside from the transaction account number, the transaction accountissuer system 102 has made the decision as to whether to approve thetransaction relatively “in the blind.” Accordingly, in the past,merchants performing e-commerce transactions have borne the liabilityfor fraudulent e-commerce transactions, because transaction accountissuers have been unable to verify that the individual engaging in thetransaction is the individual who owns the transaction account—that is,whether the requested transaction is fraudulent.

In various embodiments, one or more APIs integrated with, communicatingwith or installed with the transaction account issuer system 102 mayauthenticate (based on at least some of the attributes shown in FIGS. 3and/or 4) the transaction account holder to a selected transactionaccount (step 208). For example, as part of the transaction accountholder's digital wallet, the transaction account issuer system 102 maydetermine whether to approve the transaction account holder's request toapprove payment, based on the APIs comprising routines. Moreparticularly, the digital wallet previously obtained a variety ofattributes (e.g., screen resolution and/or user language), so the APImay analyze those attributes to determine whether a requestedtransaction is likely fraudulent. The API may communicate with theweb-client to determine the web-client attributes, and compares theweb-client attributes to the attributes stored in the digital wallet.The API may also analyze transaction attributes, and compare thetransaction attributes to attributes stored in the digital wallet. Forexample, a transaction account holder whose typical language is English,for example, may be flagged as conducting a suspicious transaction,where the online transaction is being conducted in Chinese. The issuerthen associates a flag with the transaction to indicate that thetransaction may be suspicious.

Thus, the transaction account issuer system 102 may determine (e.g.,prior to transmitting an authorization for a requested payment to amerchant system 106), based upon a variety of attributes (e.g., as shownin FIGS. 3 and 4), whether to approve a transaction.

If the transaction account issuer system 102 determines to approve thetransaction, the transaction account issuer may accept financialliability for the transaction if it is not fraudulent, because thetransaction account issuer system 102 has a large number of factors todetermine whether the transaction is fraudulent (step 210). The systemmay flag the transaction as a transaction with issuer liability.

However, if the transaction account issuer system 102 determines thatthe requested transaction, based upon digital wallet attributes, is forsome reason suspicious (e.g., the IP address of the transaction accountholder web-client 108 has changed), the transaction account issuersystem 102 may, through the API, flag the transaction request assuspicious.

In response to a transaction being flagged as suspicious, thetransaction account issuer system 102 may issue a challenge to thetransaction account holder through the transaction account holder'sweb-client 108. For example, the transaction account issuer system 102may transmit a verification code to the transaction account holder'smobile communication device. The transaction account issuer system 102and/or the merchant may cause the merchant website to include an entryfield for such verification code. The entry field may be part of themerchant webpages and/or in a pop-up window. The transaction accountholder may be required to enter the verification code (or challengeanswer) in the merchant website (or into a verification pop-up windowprovided by the merchant website), before the transaction request isapproved by the transaction account issuer system 102. Such verificationcode (or challenge answer) is then transmitted back to the issuer (orotherwise obtained by the issuer).

If the transaction account holder answers the challenge correctly, thetransaction account issuer system 102 may accept financialresponsibility for the transaction. The issuer may then flag thetransaction as issuer liability.

If the transaction account issuer system 102 still determines that therequested transaction is likely fraudulent (e.g., a number of factors inFIGS. 3 and 4 are incorrect, partially incorrect, and/or missing), thetransaction account issuer system 102 may decline or refuse thetransaction request and notify the merchant that it will not process thetransaction. In response to a rejection, the transaction account holdermay select a different transaction account from his digital wallet, ifone exists, to complete the transaction.

Thus, the transaction account issuer system 102 may utilize a variety ofattributes (e.g., the attributes shown in FIGS. 3 and 4) to authorize ordecline a transaction. Where the transaction account issuer systemauthorizes a transaction, the transaction account issuer may shiftliability for the transaction away from the merchant and to itself.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein are implementedusing the various particular machines described herein. The methodsdescribed herein may be implemented using the particular machines, andthose hereinafter developed, in any suitable combination, as would beappreciated immediately by one skilled in the art. Further, as isunambiguous from this disclosure, the methods described herein mayresult in various transformations of certain articles.

For the sake of brevity, conventional data networking, applicationdevelopment and other functional aspects of the systems (and componentsof the individual operating components of the systems) may not bedescribed in detail herein. Furthermore, the connecting lines shown inthe various figures contained herein are intended to represent exemplaryfunctional relationships and/or physical couplings between the variouselements. It should be noted that many alternative or additionalfunctional relationships or physical connections may be present in apractical system.

An “account”, “account code”, or “account number”, as used herein, mayinclude any device, code, number, letter, symbol, digital certificate,smart chip, digital signal, analog signal, biometric or otheridentifier/indicia suitably configured to allow the consumer to access,interact with or communicate with the system (e.g., one or more of anauthorization/access code, personal identification number (PIN),Internet code, other identification code, and/or the like). The accountnumber may optionally be located on or associated with a rewards card,charge card, credit card, debit card, prepaid card, telephone card,embossed card, smart card, magnetic stripe card, bar code card,transponder, radio frequency card or an associated account. The systemmay include or interface with any of the foregoing cards or devices, QRcodes, Bluetooth, Near Field Communication, or a transponder and RFIDreader in RF communication with the transponder (which may include afob). Typical devices may include, for example, a key ring, tag, card,cell phone, wrist watch or any such form capable of being presented forinterrogation.

Moreover, the system, computing unit or device discussed herein mayinclude a “pervasive computing device,” which may include atraditionally non-computerized device that is embedded with a computingunit. Examples can include watches, Internet enabled kitchen appliances,restaurant tables embedded with RF readers, wallets or purses withimbedded transponders, etc.

The account code may be distributed and stored in any form of plastic,electronic, magnetic, radio frequency, wireless, audio and/or opticaldevice capable of transmitting or downloading data from itself to asecond device. A customer account code may be, for example, asixteen-digit transaction account code, although each transactionaccount provider has its own numbering system, such as the fifteen-digitnumbering system used by American Express. Each company's transactionaccount codes comply with that company's standardized format such thatthe company using a fifteen-digit format will generally use three-spacedsets of numbers, as represented by the number “0000 000000 00000”. Thefirst five to seven digits are reserved for processing purposes andidentify the issuing bank, card type, etc. In this example, the last(fifteenth) digit is used as a sum check for the fifteen digit number.The intermediary eight-to-eleven digits are used to uniquely identifythe customer. A merchant account code may be, for example, any number oralpha-numeric characters that identify a particular merchant forpurposes of card acceptance, account reconciliation, reporting, or thelike.

It should be noted that the transfer of information in accordance withthe present disclosure, may be completed in a format recognizable by amerchant system or account issuer. In that regard, by way of example,the information may be transmitted from a contactless (e.g., an RFIDdevice) to a contactless (e.g., RFID) reader or from the contactlessreader to the merchant system in a variety of formats, e.g., magneticstripe or multi-track magnetic stripe format.

The various system components discussed herein may include one or moreof the following: a host server or other computing systems including aprocessor for processing digital data; a memory coupled to the processorfor storing digital data; an input digitizer coupled to the processorfor inputting digital data; an application program stored in the memoryand accessible by the processor for directing processing of digital databy the processor; a display device coupled to the processor and memoryfor displaying information derived from digital data processed by theprocessor; and a plurality of databases. Various databases used hereinmay include: client data; merchant data; financial institution data;and/or like data useful in the operation of the system. As those skilledin the art will appreciate, user computer may include an operatingsystem (e.g., Windows NT, 95/98/2000, XP, Vista, OS2, UNIX, Linux,Solaris, MacOS, etc.) as well as various conventional support softwareand drivers typically associated with computers. A user may include anyindividual, business, entity, government organization, software and/orhardware that interact with a system.

In an embodiment, various components, modules, and/or engines of thesystem may be implemented as micro-applications or micro-apps.Micro-apps are typically deployed in the context of a mobile operatingsystem, including for example, a Palm mobile operating system, a Windowsmobile operating system, an Android Operating System, Apple iOS, aBlackberry operating system and the like. The micro-app may beconfigured to leverage the resources of the larger operating system andassociated hardware via a set of predetermined rules which govern theoperations of various operating systems and hardware resources. Forexample, where a micro-app desires to communicate with a device ornetwork other than the mobile device or mobile operating system, themicro-app may leverage the communication protocol of the operatingsystem and associated device hardware under the predetermined rules ofthe mobile operating system. Moreover, where the micro-app desires aninput from a user, the micro-app may be configured to request a responsefrom the operating system which monitors various hardware components andthen communicates a detected input from the hardware to the micro-app.

The system contemplates uses in association with web services, utilitycomputing, pervasive and individualized computing, security and identitysolutions, autonomic computing, cloud computing, commodity computing,mobility and wireless solutions, open source, biometrics, grid computingand/or mesh computing.

The various system components described herein may be independently,separately or collectively coupled to the network 104 via one or moredata links including, for example, a connection to an Internet ServiceProvider (ISP) over a local loop as is typically used in connection withstandard modem communication, cable modem, Dish networks, ISDN, DigitalSubscriber Line (DSL), or various wireless communication methods, see,e.g., GILBERT HELD, UNDERSTANDING DATA COMMUNICATIONS (1996), which ishereby incorporated by reference. It is noted that the network 104 maybe implemented variously. For example, network 104 may be implemented asan interactive television (ITV) network. The systems and methodsdisclosed herein contemplate the use, sale and/or distribution of anygoods, services or information over any network having functionalitysimilar to that described above with reference to network 104.

“Cloud” or “Cloud computing” includes a model for enabling convenient,on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computingresources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services)that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal managementeffort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing may includelocation-independent computing, whereby shared servers provideresources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand.For more information regarding cloud computing, see the NIST's (NationalInstitute of Standards and Technology) definition of cloud computing athttp://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf (lastvisited June 2012), which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

Any databases discussed herein may include relational, hierarchical,graphical, or object-oriented structure and/or any other databaseconfigurations. Common database products that may be used to implementthe databases include DB2 by IBM (Armonk, N.Y.), various databaseproducts available from Oracle Corporation (Redwood Shores, Calif.),Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server by Microsoft Corporation(Redmond, Wash.), MySQL by MySQL AB (Uppsala, Sweden), or any othersuitable database product. Moreover, the databases may be organized inany suitable manner, for example, as data tables or lookup tables. Eachrecord may be a single file, a series of files, a linked series of datafields or any other data structure. Association of certain data may beaccomplished through any desired data association technique such asthose known or practiced in the art. For example, the association may beaccomplished either manually or automatically. Automatic associationtechniques may include, for example, a database search, a databasemerge, GREP, AGREP, SQL, using a key field in the tables to speedsearches, sequential searches through all the tables and files, sortingrecords in the file according to a known order to simplify lookup,and/or the like. The association step may be accomplished by a databasemerge function, for example, using a “key field” in pre-selecteddatabases or data sectors. Various database tuning steps arecontemplated to optimize database performance. For example, frequentlyused files such as indexes may be placed on separate file systems toreduce In/Out (“I/O”) bottlenecks.

More particularly, a “key field” partitions the database according tothe high-level class of objects defined by the key field. For example,certain types of data may be designated as a key field in a plurality ofrelated data tables and the data tables may then be linked on the basisof the type of data in the key field. The data corresponding to the keyfield in each of the linked data tables is preferably the same or of thesame type. However, data tables having similar, though not identical,data in the key fields may also be linked by using AGREP, for example.In accordance with one embodiment, any suitable data storage techniquemay be utilized to store data without a standard format. Data sets maybe stored using any suitable technique, including, for example, storingindividual files using an ISO/IEC 7816-4 file structure; implementing adomain whereby a dedicated file is selected that exposes one or moreelementary files containing one or more data sets; using data setsstored in individual files using a hierarchical filing system; data setsstored as records in a single file (including compression, SQLaccessible, hashed via one or more keys, numeric, alphabetical by firsttuple, etc.); Binary Large Object (BLOB); stored as ungrouped dataelements encoded using ISO/IEC 7816-6 data elements; stored as ungroupeddata elements encoded using ISO/IEC Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1) asin ISO/IEC 8824 and 8825; and/or other proprietary techniques that mayinclude fractal compression methods, image compression methods, etc.

In various embodiments, the ability to store a wide variety ofinformation in different formats is facilitated by storing theinformation as a BLOB. Thus, any binary information can be stored in astorage space associated with a data set. As discussed above, the binaryinformation may be stored on the financial transaction instrument orexternal to but affiliated with the financial transaction instrument.The BLOB method may store data sets as ungrouped data elements formattedas a block of binary via a fixed memory offset using either fixedstorage allocation, circular queue techniques, or best practices withrespect to memory management (e.g., paged memory, least recently used,etc.). By using BLOB methods, the ability to store various data setsthat have different formats facilitates the storage of data associatedwith the financial transaction instrument by multiple and unrelatedowners of the data sets. For example, a first data set which may bestored may be provided by a first party, a second data set which may bestored may be provided by an unrelated second party, and yet a thirddata set which may be stored, may be provided by an third partyunrelated to the first and second party. Each of these three exemplarydata sets may contain different information that is stored usingdifferent data storage formats and/or techniques. Further, each data setmay contain subsets of data that also may be distinct from othersubsets.

As stated above, in various embodiments, the data can be stored withoutregard to a common format. However, in one exemplary embodiment, thedata set (e.g., BLOB) may be annotated in a standard manner whenprovided for manipulating the data onto the financial transactioninstrument. The annotation may comprise a short header, trailer, orother appropriate indicator related to each data set that is configuredto convey information useful in managing the various data sets. Forexample, the annotation may be called a “condition header”, “header”,“trailer”, or “status”, herein, and may comprise an indication of thestatus of the data set or may include an identifier correlated to aspecific issuer or owner of the data. In one example, the first threebytes of each data set BLOB may be configured or configurable toindicate the status of that particular data set; e.g., LOADED,INITIALIZED, READY, BLOCKED, REMOVABLE, or DELETED. Subsequent bytes ofdata may be used to indicate for example, the identity of the issuer,user, transaction/membership account identifier or the like. Each ofthese condition annotations are further discussed herein.

The data set annotation may also be used for other types of statusinformation as well as various other purposes. For example, the data setannotation may include security information establishing access levels.The access levels may, for example, be configured to permit only certainindividuals, levels of employees, companies, or other entities to accessdata sets, or to permit access to specific data sets based on thetransaction, merchant, issuer, user or the like. Furthermore, thesecurity information may restrict/permit only certain actions such asaccessing, modifying, and/or deleting data sets. In one example, thedata set annotation indicates that only the data set owner or the userare permitted to delete a data set, various identified users may bepermitted to access the data set for reading, and others are altogetherexcluded from accessing the data set. However, other access restrictionparameters may also be used allowing various entities to access a dataset with various permission levels as appropriate.

The data, including the header or trailer may be received by a standalone interaction device configured to add, delete, modify, or augmentthe data in accordance with the header or trailer. As such, in oneembodiment, the header or trailer is not stored on the transactiondevice along with the associated issuer-owned data but instead theappropriate action may be taken by providing to the transactioninstrument user at the stand alone device, the appropriate option forthe action to be taken. The system may contemplate a data storagearrangement wherein the header or trailer, or header or trailer history,of the data is stored on the transaction instrument in relation to theappropriate data.

One skilled in the art will also appreciate that, for security reasons,any databases, systems, devices, servers or other components of thesystem may consist of any combination thereof at a single location or atmultiple locations, wherein each database or system includes any ofvarious suitable security features, such as firewalls, access codes,encryption, decryption, compression, decompression, and/or the like.

A firewall may comprise any hardware and/or software suitably configuredto protect system components and/or enterprise computing resources fromusers of other networks. Further, a firewall may be configured to limitor restrict access to various systems and components behind the firewallfor web clients connecting through a web server. A firewall may residein varying configurations including Stateful Inspection, Proxy based,access control lists, and Packet Filtering among others. A firewall maybe integrated within a web server or any other CMS components or mayfurther reside as a separate entity. A firewall may implement networkaddress translation (“NAT”) and/or network address port translation(“NAPT”). A firewall may accommodate various tunneling protocols tofacilitate secure communications, such as those used in virtual privatenetworking. A firewall may implement a demilitarized zone (“DMZ”) tofacilitate communications with a public network such as the Internet. Afirewall may be integrated as software within an Internet server, anyother application server components or may reside within anothercomputing device or may take the form of a standalone hardwarecomponent.

Encryption may be performed by way of any of the techniques nowavailable in the art or which may become available—e.g., Twofish, RSA,El Gamal, Schorr signature, DSA, PGP, PKI, and symmetric and asymmetriccryptosystems.

The computers discussed herein may provide a suitable website or otherInternet-based graphical user interface which is accessible by users. Inone embodiment, the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS),Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), and Microsoft SQL Server, are usedin conjunction with the Microsoft operating system, Microsoft NT webserver software, a Microsoft SQL Server database system, and a MicrosoftCommerce Server. Additionally, components such as Access or MicrosoftSQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, Informix MySQL, Interbase, etc., may be usedto provide an Active Data Object (ADO) compliant database managementsystem. In one embodiment, the Apache web server is used in conjunctionwith a Linux operating system, a MySQL database, and the Perl, PHP,and/or Python programming languages.

Any of the communications, inputs, storage, databases or displaysdiscussed herein may be facilitated through a website having web pages.The term “web page” as it is used herein is not meant to limit the typeof documents and applications that might be used to interact with theuser. For example, a typical website might include, in addition tostandard HTML documents, various forms, Java applets, JavaScript, activeserver pages (ASP), common gateway interface scripts (CGI), extensiblemarkup language (XML), dynamic HTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), AJAX(Asynchronous Javascript And XML), helper applications, plug-ins, andthe like. A server may include a web service that receives a requestfrom a web server, the request including a URL(http://yahoo.com/stockquotes/ge) and an IP address (123.56.789.234).The web server retrieves the appropriate web pages and sends the data orapplications for the web pages to the IP address. Web services areapplications that are capable of interacting with other applicationsover a communications means, such as the internet. Web services aretypically based on standards or protocols such as XML, SOAP, AJAX, WSDLand UDDI. Web services methods are well known in the art, and arecovered in many standard texts. See, e.g., ALEX NGHIEM, IT WEB SERVICES:A ROADMAP FOR THE ENTERPRISE (2003), hereby incorporated by reference.

Middleware may include any hardware and/or software suitably configuredto facilitate communications and/or process transactions betweendisparate computing systems. Middleware components are commerciallyavailable and known in the art. Middleware may be implemented throughcommercially available hardware and/or software, through custom hardwareand/or software components, or through a combination thereof. Middlewaremay reside in a variety of configurations and may exist as a standalonesystem or may be a software component residing on the Internet server.Middleware may be configured to process transactions between the variouscomponents of an application server and any number of internal orexternal systems for any of the purposes disclosed herein. WebSphereMQTM (formerly MQSeries) by IBM, Inc. (Armonk, N.Y.) is an example of acommercially available middleware product. An Enterprise Service Bus(“ESB”) application is another example of middleware.

Practitioners will also appreciate that there are a number of methodsfor displaying data within a browser-based document. Data may berepresented as standard text or within a fixed list, scrollable list,drop-down list, editable text field, fixed text field, pop-up window,and the like. Likewise, there are a number of methods available formodifying data in a web page such as, for example, free text entry usinga keyboard, selection of menu items, check boxes, option boxes, and thelike.

The system and method may be described herein in terms of functionalblock components, screen shots, optional selections and variousprocessing steps. It should be appreciated that such functional blocksmay be realized by any number of hardware and/or software componentsconfigured to perform the specified functions. For example, the systemmay employ various integrated circuit components, e.g., memory elements,processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, and the like, whichmay carry out a variety of functions under the control of one or moremicroprocessors or other control devices. Similarly, the softwareelements of the system may be implemented with any programming orscripting language such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, VBScript,Macromedia Cold Fusion, COBOL, Microsoft Active Server Pages, assembly,PERL, PHP, awk, Python, Visual Basic, SQL Stored Procedures, PL/SQL, anyUNIX shell script, and extensible markup language (XML) with the variousalgorithms being implemented with any combination of data structures,objects, processes, routines or other programming elements. Further, itshould be noted that the system may employ any number of conventionaltechniques for data transmission, signaling, data processing, networkcontrol, and the like. Still further, the system could be used to detector prevent security issues with a client-side scripting language, suchas JavaScript, VBScript or the like. For a basic introduction ofcryptography and network security, see any of the following references:(1) “Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, And Source Code In C,”by Bruce Schneier, published by John Wiley & Sons (second edition,1995); (2) “Java Cryptography” by Jonathan Knudson, published byO'Reilly & Associates (1998); (3) “Cryptography & Network Security:Principles & Practice” by William Stallings, published by Prentice Hall;all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

As used herein, the term “end user”, “consumer”, “customer”,“cardmember”, “business” or “merchant” may be used interchangeably witheach other, and each shall mean any person, entity, machine, hardware,software or business. A bank may be part of the system, but the bank mayrepresent other types of card issuing institutions, such as credit cardcompanies, card sponsoring companies, or third party issuers undercontract with financial institutions. It is further noted that otherparticipants may be involved in some phases of the transaction, such asan intermediary settlement institution, but these participants are notshown.

Each participant is equipped with a computing device in order tointeract with the system and facilitate online commerce transactions.The customer has a computing unit in the form of a personal computer,although other types of computing units may be used including laptops,notebooks, hand held computers, set-top boxes, cellular telephones,touch-tone telephones and the like. The merchant has a computing unitimplemented in the form of a computer-server, although otherimplementations are contemplated by the system. The bank has a computingcenter shown as a main frame computer. However, the bank computingcenter may be implemented in other forms, such as a mini-computer, a PCserver, a network of computers located in the same of differentgeographic locations, or the like. Moreover, the system contemplates theuse, sale or distribution of any goods, services or information over anynetwork having similar functionality described herein.

The merchant computer and the bank computer may be interconnected via asecond network, referred to as a payment network. The payment networkwhich may be part of certain transactions represents existingproprietary networks that presently accommodate transactions for creditcards, debit cards, and other types of financial/banking cards. Thepayment network is a closed network that is assumed to be secure fromeavesdroppers. Exemplary transaction networks may include the AmericanExpress®, VisaNet® and the Veriphone® networks.

The electronic commerce system may be implemented at the customer andissuing bank. In an exemplary implementation, the electronic commercesystem is implemented as computer software modules loaded onto thecustomer computer and the banking computing center. The merchantcomputer does not require any additional software to participate in theonline commerce transactions supported by the online commerce system.

As will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, the systemmay be embodied as a customization of an existing system, an add-onproduct, upgraded software, a stand alone system, a distributed system,a method, a data processing system, a device for data processing, and/ora computer program product. Accordingly, the system may take the form ofan entirely software embodiment, an entirely hardware embodiment, or anembodiment combining aspects of both software and hardware. Furthermore,the system may take the form of a computer program product on acomputer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program codemeans embodied in the storage medium. Any suitable computer-readablestorage medium may be utilized, including hard disks, CD-ROM, opticalstorage devices, magnetic storage devices, and/or the like.

The system and method is described herein with reference to screenshots, block diagrams and flowchart illustrations of methods, apparatus(e.g., systems), and computer program products according to variousembodiments. It will be understood that each functional block of theblock diagrams and the flowchart illustrations, and combinations offunctional blocks in the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations,respectively, can be implemented by computer program instructions.

These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a general purposecomputer, special purpose computer, or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructionsthat execute on the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus create means for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks. These computer program instructions may alsobe stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the function specified in the flowchart block or blocks.The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series ofoperational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmableapparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that theinstructions which execute on the computer or other programmableapparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks.

Accordingly, functional blocks of the block diagrams and flowchartillustrations support combinations of means for performing the specifiedfunctions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions,and program instruction means for performing the specified functions. Itwill also be understood that each functional block of the block diagramsand flowchart illustrations, and combinations of functional blocks inthe block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, can be implemented byeither special purpose hardware-based computer systems which perform thespecified functions or steps, or suitable combinations of specialpurpose hardware and computer instructions. Further, illustrations ofthe process flows and the descriptions thereof may make reference touser windows, webpages, websites, web forms, prompts, etc. Practitionerswill appreciate that the illustrated steps described herein may comprisein any number of configurations including the use of windows, webpages,web forms, popup windows, prompts and the like. It should be furtherappreciated that the multiple steps as illustrated and described may becombined into single webpages and/or windows but have been expanded forthe sake of simplicity. In other cases, steps illustrated and describedas single process steps may be separated into multiple webpages and/orwindows but have been combined for simplicity.

In the detailed description herein, references to “one embodiment”, “anembodiment”, “an example embodiment”, “various embodiments”, etc.,indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature,structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarilyinclude the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover,such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment.Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic isdescribed in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it iswithin the knowledge of one skilled in the art to effect such feature,structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodimentswhether or not explicitly described. After reading the description, itwill be apparent to one skilled in the relevant art(s) how to implementthe disclosure in certain embodiments.

Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have beendescribed herein with regard to specific embodiments. However, thebenefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any elements that maycause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become morepronounced are not to be construed as critical, required, or essentialfeatures or elements of the disclosure. The scope of the disclosure isaccordingly to be limited by nothing other than the appended claims, inwhich reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean“one and only one” unless explicitly so stated, but rather “one ormore.” Moreover, where a phrase similar to ‘at least one of A, B, and C’or ‘at least one of A, B, or C’ is used in the claims or specification,it is intended that the phrase be interpreted to mean that A alone maybe present in an embodiment, B alone may be present in an embodiment, Calone may be present in an embodiment, or that any combination of theelements A, B and C may be present in a single embodiment; for example,A and B, A and C, B and C, or A and B and C. Although the inventionshave been described as a method in certain embodiments, it iscontemplated that it may be embodied as computer program instructions ona tangible computer-readable carrier, such as a magnetic or opticalmemory or a magnetic or optical disk. All structural, chemical, andfunctional equivalents to the elements of the above-described exemplaryembodiments that are known to those of ordinary skill in the art areexpressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to beencompassed by the present claims. Moreover, it is not necessary for adevice or method to address each and every problem sought to be solvedby the present disclosure, for it to be encompassed by the presentclaims. Furthermore, no element, component, or method step in thepresent disclosure is intended to be dedicated to the public regardlessof whether the element, component, or method step is explicitly recitedin the claims. No claim element herein is to be construed under theprovisions of 35 U.S.C. 112(f) unless the element is expressly recitedusing the phrase “means for.” As used herein, the terms “comprises”,“comprising”, or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover anon-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, orapparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only thoseelements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherentto such process, method, article, or apparatus.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving, by a financialaccount issuer system, a purchase request with purchase data for apurchase transaction; automatically acquiring, by the financial accountissuer system and using an application programming interface (API), aweb-client attribute associated with a functionality of a web-client ofa transaction account holder while the transaction account holder isconducting the purchase transaction, wherein the web-client attribute isa session attribute or a device attribute; comparing, by the financialaccount issuer system, and using the API, and in response to theautomatically acquiring, the acquired web-client attribute with one ormore of stored digital wallet attributes from a digital walletassociated with the transaction account holder; confirming, by thefinancial account issuer system, that the acquired web-client attributesatisfies one or more of the stored digital wallet attributes;obtaining, by the financial account issuer system and using the API, atransaction attribute from the purchase data; comparing, by thefinancial account issuer system, the transaction attribute with one ormore of the stored digital wallet attributes; flagging, by the financialaccount issuer system, the purchase request as suspicious in response tothe comparing; when the purchase request is flagged as suspicious,issuing, by the financial account issuer system, a challenge to thetransaction account holder through the web-client, the issuingcomprising: (i) causing, by the financial account issuer system, amerchant site associated with the purchase transaction to render averification pop-up window; and (ii) obtaining, by the financial accountissuer system, a verification code from the verification pop-up window;verifying, by the financial account issuer system, the verification codeobtained from the verification pop-up window; based on the verifying,notifying, by the financial account issuer system, a merchant system ofa shift of financial responsibility for the purchase transaction;flagging, by the financial account issuer system, the purchasetransaction to indicate that the financial account issuer system acceptsthe financial responsibility for the purchase transaction; andauthorizing, by the financial account issuer system, the purchasetransaction based at least in part on the confirming that the acquiredweb-client attribute satisfies one or more of the stored digital walletattributes.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving, bythe financial account issuer system and in response to the notifying, anauthorization request message from the merchant system.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: associating, by the financial accountissuer system, one or more attributes of the transaction account holderwith the digital wallet; and storing, by the financial account issuersystem, the one or more attributes in association with the digitalwallet to create the stored digital wallet attributes, wherein thestored digital wallet attributes comprise a first attribute entered bythe transaction account holder and a second attribute gathered by thefinancial account issuer system.
 4. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising issuing, by the financial account issuer system and based atleast in part on the acquired web-client attribute, at least one of achallenge question or a verification code request to the transactionaccount holder, in response to the purchase request being determined tobe suspicious.
 5. The method of claim 4, further comprising shifting, bythe financial account issuer system, responsibility for the purchasetransaction from the merchant system to the financial account issuersystem, in response to a correct response to the challenge question. 6.The method of claim 4, further comprising: declining, by the financialaccount issuer system, to shift responsibility for the purchasetransaction from the merchant system to the financial account issuersystem based at least in part upon an incorrect response to thechallenge question; and accepting, by the financial account issuersystem, a different transaction account from the transaction accountholder for conducting the purchase transaction.
 7. The method of claim1, further comprising automatically populating, by the financial accountissuer system and based at least in part on the stored digital walletattributes, a merchant online form.
 8. An article of manufactureincluding a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage mediumhaving instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by afinancial account issuer system, cause the financial account issuersystem to perform operations comprising: receiving, by the financialaccount issuer system, a purchase request with purchase data for apurchase transaction; automatically acquiring, by the financial accountissuer system and using an application programming interface (API), aweb-client attribute associated with a functionality of a web-client ofa transaction account holder while the transaction account holder isconducting the purchase transaction, wherein the web-client attribute isa session attribute or a device attribute; comparing, by the financialaccount issuer system, the acquired web-client attribute with one ormore of stored digital wallet attributes from a digital walletassociated with the transaction account holder; confirming, by thefinancial account issuer system, that the acquired web-client attributesatisfies one or more of the stored digital wallet attributes;obtaining, by the financial account issuer system and using the API, atransaction attribute from the purchase data; comparing, by thefinancial account issuer system, the transaction attribute with one ormore of the stored digital wallet attributes; flagging, by the financialaccount issuer system, the purchase request as suspicious in response tothe comparing; when the purchase request is flagged as suspicious,issuing, by the financial account issuer system, a challenge to thetransaction account holder through the web-client, the issuingcomprising: (i) causing, by the financial account issuer system, amerchant site associated with the purchase transaction to render averification pop-up window; and (ii) obtaining, by the financial accountissuer system, a verification code from the verification pop-up window;verifying, by the financial account issuer system, the verification codeobtained from the verification pop-up window; based on the verifying,notifying, by the financial account issuer system, a merchant system ofa shift of financial responsibility for the purchase transaction;flagging, by the financial account issuer system, the purchasetransaction to indicate that the financial account issuer system acceptsthe financial responsibility for the purchase transaction; andauthorizing, by the financial account issuer system, the purchasetransaction based at least in part on the confirming that the acquiredweb-client attribute satisfies one or more of the stored digital walletattributes.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the acquired web-clientattribute also includes at least one of a Browser User Agent, or BrowserLanguage.
 10. The article of claim 8, further comprising: associating,by the financial account issuer system, one or more attributes of thetransaction account holder with the digital wallet; and storing, by thefinancial account issuer system, the one or more attributes inassociation with the digital wallet to create the stored digital walletattributes, wherein the stored digital wallet attributes comprise afirst attribute entered by the transaction account holder, and a secondattribute gathered by the financial account issuer system.
 11. Thearticle of claim 8, further comprising issuing, by the financial accountissuer system and based at least in part on the acquired web-clientattribute, at least one of a challenge question or a verification coderequest to the transaction account holder.
 12. The article of claim 11,further comprising, by the financial account issuer system, shiftingresponsibility for the purchase transaction from the merchant system tothe financial account issuer system, in response to a correct responseto the challenge question.
 13. The article of claim 11, furthercomprising declining, by the financial account issuer system, to shiftresponsibility for the purchase transaction from the merchant system tothe financial account issuer system, based upon an incorrect response tothe challenge question.
 14. The article of claim 8, further comprisingautomatically populating, by the financial account issuer system andbased at least in part on the stored digital wallet attributes, amerchant online form.
 15. A system comprising: a financial accountissuer processor; and a tangible, non-transitory memory configured tocommunicate with the financial account issuer processor, the tangible,non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that, inresponse to execution by the financial account issuer processor, causethe financial account issuer processor to be capable of performingoperations comprising: receiving, by the financial account issuerprocessor, a purchase request with purchase data for a purchasetransaction; automatically acquiring, by the financial account issuerprocessor and using an application programming interface (API), aweb-client attribute associated with a functionality of a web-client ofa transaction account holder while the transaction account holder isconducting the purchase transaction, wherein the web-client attribute isa session attribute or a device attribute; comparing, by the financialaccount issuer processor, the acquired web-client attribute with one ormore of stored digital wallet attributes from a digital walletassociated with the transaction account holder; confirming, by thefinancial account issuer processor, that the acquired web-clientattribute satisfies one or more of the stored digital wallet attributes;obtaining, by the financial account issuer processor and using the APIand in response to the confirming that the web client attributesatisfies the stored digital wallet attributes, a transaction attributefrom the purchase data; comparing, by the financial account issuerprocessor, the transaction attribute with one or more of the storeddigital wallet attributes; flagging, by the financial account issuerprocessor, the purchase request as suspicious in response to thecomparing; when the purchase request is flagged as suspicious, issuing,by the financial account issuer processor, a challenge to thetransaction account holder through the web-client, the issuingcomprising: (i) causing, by the financial account issuer processor, amerchant site associated with the purchase transaction to render averification pop-up window; and (ii) obtaining, by the financial accountissuer processor, a verification code from the verification pop-upwindow; verifying, by the financial account issuer processor, theverification code obtained from the verification pop-up window; based onthe verifying, notifying, by the financial account issuer processor, amerchant system of a shift of financial responsibility for the purchasetransaction; flagging, by the financial account issuer processor, thepurchase transaction to indicate that the financial account issuerprocessor accepts the financial responsibility for the purchasetransaction; and authorizing, by the financial account issuer processor,the purchase transaction based at least in part on the confirming thatthe acquired web-client attribute satisfies one or more of the storeddigital wallet attributes.
 16. The system of claim 15, furthercomprising receiving, by the financial account issuer processor and inresponse to the notifying, an authorization request message from themerchant system.
 17. The system of claim 15, further comprising:associating, by the financial account issuer processor, one or moreattributes of the transaction account holder with the digital wallet;and storing, by the financial account issuer processor, the one or moreattributes in association with the digital wallet to create the storeddigital wallet attributes, wherein the stored digital wallet attributescomprise a first attribute entered by the transaction account holder,and a second attribute gathered by the financial account issuerprocessor.
 18. The system of claim 15, further comprising issuing, bythe financial account issuer processor and based at least in part on theacquired web-client attribute, at least one of a challenge question or averification code request to the transaction account holder.
 19. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the determining whether to shift is furtherbased at least in part on at least one of session attributes or cardattributes satisfying the stored digital wallet attributes.
 20. Themethod of claim 19, wherein the stored digital wallet attributes includeat least one of wallet provider, tenure of wallet ID, number of dayssince last log in, tenure of pair wallet ID, number of cards in thedigital wallet, number of cards with binding, number of days since lastpassword reset, or number of days since last email recovery, and whereinthe session attributes include at least one of ISP, Organization,Domain, Net Speed, or User Type.